Lovely Awkward: A Year of Wine, Romance and Life Among the French

Lovely Awkward: A Year of Wine, Romance and Life Among the French

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Canada, romance and snow: What would you miss?

Drove past a vision of Canadian romance today. A couple, feeding each other poutine while driving from Quebec into Ontario. Well, the passenger was feeding the driver. Poutine (as most Canadians in this area will know), requires two hands to eat.

This made me happy and sad, which seeems to be my reaction to most things since I got back. I guess I'm beginning to see some of the romance in Canada that I'm now going to miss.

Example: Yesterday, I went to the gym and came out to find my car covered in snow. I searched in the back seat for the brush to clean it off and began clearing off the windows. While I was doing that, I thought, "I'm good at this. THIS is a skill of mine. I can clean off car windows... and I know how to drive with snow tires. THIS is impressive and many people in the world have no idea how to do this."

Then I realized that the time I spent learning this awesome skill of scraping off windows in Ottawa isn't going to help me in France. And maybe people in France used that time to learn some other skill that I don't have. And maybe I'll end up in France with holes where all of my Canadian skills used to be (when they no longer apply)... and maybe in France, I'll just look unskilled to everyone -- as though I spent too much time sleeping or watching television growing up.

And then... I lost it. I'm calling it reverse homesickness, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

What would you miss?

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